Comparison of Five Inservicing Methods in an Intensive Care Nursery

Abstract

Objective

Communicating to nurses new information on therapeutics or pharmacy procedures is a frequent challenge faced by most hospital pharmacists. Pharmacists should use the most efficient and effective methods to inservice nursing staff. The purpose of this study was to compare five methods of inservicing in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to determine which method resulted in the greatest knowledge retention as assessed by a ten-question quiz.

Design

Various combinations of written guideline alone, verbal discussion by a pharmacist with and without a written guideline, and verbal discussion by a nurse with and without a written guideline were used to introduce nurses to the use of caffeine for apnea/bradycardia of the newborn. Each nurse completed a quiz to assess knowledge retention. The written guideline and quiz were prepared by a pharmacist.

Participants

Forty-eight nurses participated in the study: (1) group 1 (n=11) received the written guideline only (no verbal discussion); (2) group 2 (n=14) received verbal discussion by a pharmacist plus a written guideline; (3) group 3 (n=9) received verbal discussion by a nurse-educator plus a written guideline; (4) group 4 (n=9) received verbal discussion by a pharmacist (no written guideline); and (5) group 5 (n=5) received verbal discussion by a nurse-educator (no written guideline).

Main Outcome Measures

Mean quiz scores for all groups were compared and assessed using the Irwin-Fisher test for equality of binomial probabilities on all possible pairs of groups.

Results

Mean quiz scores for groups 1 and 3 were 10; for group 2, 8.6; for group 4, 9; and for group 5, 9.2. Using the Irwin-Fisher tests for equality of binomial probabilities on all possible pairs of groups, the probability of obtaining a perfect score on the quiz was the highest for groups 1 and 3 (p≤0.05).

Conclusions

Within the limitations and the setting of this study, the two most effective methods of nursing inservice were a pharmacist-prepared written guideline followed by a quiz, and the written guideline plus a verbal discussion by a nurse-educator followed by a quiz. Use of these methods can reduce pharmacist inservice time and improve medication knowledge of the nurses and possibly reduce errors in the NICU.